


425 Days, 14 Lines, 1 Name

by orphan_account



Series: Flash Fiction from Baker Street [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Drabble, Flash Fiction, Gen, Pablo Neruda - Freeform, Post-Reichenbach, not really 'cause it's a bit too long but still, shameless poetry pimping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:43:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It starts with a can of yellow spray-paint and a note on the steps of 221B Baker Street.<br/>Or it started months ago with an ASBO and an alley.<br/>Or it started with his best friend’s voice echoing ‘keep your eyes fixed on me’ as a tall figure stepped off the roof of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.</i>
</p><p>We do what we can in the land of the living.</p>
            </blockquote>





	425 Days, 14 Lines, 1 Name

It starts with a can of yellow spray-paint and a note on the steps of 221B Baker Street.

Or it started months ago with an ASBO and an alley.

Or it started with his best friend’s voice echoing ‘keep your eyes fixed on me’ as a tall figure stepped off the roof of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.

It doesn’t matter how it started.  At any rate, someone left him a can and a scrap of paper.  The can he sets on the mantle next to the skull and a stack of post slashed through with a penknife.  The note he reads over a cup of lukewarm Assam that quickly goes cold as he reads the short missive again and again.  It's a crumpled piece of greyish graph paper with a water stain in one corner.  The sloped but careful script bleeds green ink across the scrap that reads ‘We know the truth, Doc.  Keep the faith.’

And maybe that’s how it starts, not with a bang but a whimper.  A single line on a torn bit of paper that simply tells him he’s not alone.

That’s the first night he pulls on one of a surprising number of hoodies tucked into Sherlock’s wardrobe of disguises.  The front pocket is large enough to easily hide the paint can and the hood puts his face in shadow.  He learned the blind spots on the CCTV in his first month at 221B, and he makes his way through back alleys and side streets until he finds a wall with a fair smattering of graffiti.

In the center of the scrawls there is already a note in a particular shade of vibrant yellow.

‘Richard Brook was a lie—Believe in Sherlock Holmes’ with the ‘o’s all morphed into ghoulish smiley faces.

Beneath the proclamation he slowly and painstakingly adds the first line from his favorite poem.  The first Sunday of every month he finds a wall and leaves a line.

Four hundred and twenty-five days.

He’s just spraying the question mark on the last line, and it’s no longer a plea.  It may be a prayer.  He thinks of saying Sherlock’s name.  He does.  And that’s when he hears the soft shuffle of worn soles on rain-dampened pavement.

“Hello, John.”

_Don't go far off, not even for a day, because –  
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long _   
_and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station  
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.  
  
Don't leave me, even for an hour, because  
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,  
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift  
into me, choking my lost heart.  
  
Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;  
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.  
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,  
  
because in that moment you'll have gone so far  
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,  
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?_

**Author's Note:**

> The poem is most decidedly not mine, but a translation of Pablo Neruda's [Don't Go Far Off](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/don-t-go-far-off/). Sherlock and John are the property of ACD, and this incarnation is the child of Moffat, Gatiss, and the other fine folks at the Beeb. Not technically a series, just a home for random short pieces in the 'verse.


End file.
